R-Drive Image v6

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by oliverjia, Aug 2, 2016.

  1. oliverjia

    oliverjia Registered Member

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    Hello everyone,

    Searched the forum but the most recent thread was about v5.x of R-Drive Image, and even that one is locked. I was wondering if anyone here would share some experience using it (v6.x) over a long time, in terms of it's reliability, and its support to Linux/Mac systems.
    If mods here think this thread is improper for some reason, please delete it.

    Regards,
    oliverjia
     
  2. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Hi Oliverjia

    I tested it a while ago and found it fine. I didn't abuse test it however. Only thing I didn't like was I run dual monitors and the linux display was on both screens. I would have considered it for purchase except, I already have a "'stable" of imaging programs and didn't feel it added anything to make it worth spending the money.

    Pete
     
  3. oliverjia

    oliverjia Registered Member

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    Thanks Pete. Yes I read some reviews about this program, and it appears to be robust and potent. Some reviewer even had situations where R-Drive Image saved his day when Terabyte IFL and Paragon recovery CD wouldn't boot. I am on the fence of purchasing it but not sure if I will eventually use it in favor of Acronis and Terabyte IFL. Granted I only do offline full disk image and restore.
     
  4. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Well I've never had failures with Macirum,Shadow Protect, IFW, Acronis and Drive Snapshot, so I would call them pretty robust. But like I said in the testing I did with R-Drive I saw no problems, at least for me.
     
  5. Cruise

    Cruise Registered Member

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    Fwiw, I tried it about 6-months ago and found it to be noticeably slower backing up my C-partition than 3 other disk-imagers that I compared it to (ATI, DS & IFW), so I didn't see any reason (i.e.,benefit) to consider R-DI any further..
     
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2016
  6. oliverjia

    oliverjia Registered Member

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    Thank you for your input. Your experience agrees with mine from a couple of years back. Speed is an important factor to consider, and in my tests the three ATI, DS, IFL/IFW are indeed the fastest ones while still keeping a small image size.
     
  7. Cruise

    Cruise Registered Member

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    Yw. When it comes to disk-imagers I'm constantly looking for a 'better mousetrap', but imho it's definitely not R-DI. :p
     
  8. napoleon1815

    napoleon1815 Registered Member

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    I will be the devils advocate here...I love Drive Image 6. I have used it (along with IFW/IFL, O&O, Macrium, Farstone, Paragon and Drive Snapshot - I am obsessed with imaging tools ha) so I am speaking from years of experience here. It's never let me down...I agree that it's not the fastest at times, but I am never in that much of a hurry when backing up stuff. If you are interested I would encourage you to try it out...happy to answer any questions!
     
  9. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    I found it was fine. Only thing I really didn''t like was the restore screens dupicated on both monitors. Basically only reason I don't use it is I don't feel the need to spend more money on imaging software.
     
  10. oliverjia

    oliverjia Registered Member

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    Thanks. I tried the most recent version (boot media, as I only do offline backup/restore of whole OS disk) last night. The good is that the GUI is easy to use; the ability of utilizing all CPU cores (this is definitely great) for disk image compression; and it back up all 4 GPT partitions (including MSR), and also the disk partition structure. Also it only produced one single file for the whole disk (not images for each partition). The bad is its slow speed despite using multi-thread compression (10 minutes for R-Drive image vs 3 minutes for Drive Snapshot), and relatively large disk image size (~ 15% larger as compared to the image size made by Drive Snapshot). So not bad. I might use consider purchasing it since its reliability appears to be good.
     
  11. Alexhousek

    Alexhousek Registered Member

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    Peter & Napoleon, I'm curious. I'm amazed at how many different programs you use/have used. How many disc imaging software programs do you have installed at once on a PC? How many do you recommend at once?
     
  12. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    ROFL. Alex you ask a good question. I use 4 and own several others. My primary imaging program is Macrium. Bloody fast and never let me down. I was involved with
    the early testing of v6 here, and several of use abused it beyond belief. It never failed. My 2nd favorite is IFW. Both of these are installed on the desktop. My next favorite is Drive Snapshot. It is small and tight. Whole program is only 375kb and doesn't need installing. They have nailed the API restore that Flash back attempted. The fourth and final imaging program I use is Acronis True Image 2016. I don't have it installed, run it from the Recovery Environment. The desktop install is bloat city, but from the RE is takes incrementals very quickly.

    I also own Shadowprotect and Active@Disk

    Okay why do I do all the imaging. I run a small business from home with 6 people involved. We keep no paper, and do every thing on the computers. My data and uptime is critical. Not only do I have the backups, but my setup allows me to shut down on my main business machine tonight and start up on the other computer tomorrow.

    Hope that answers, but if not fire away.
     
  13. oliverjia

    oliverjia Registered Member

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    I don't install any disk imaging software on my PC. Only do offline whole disk backup/restore. Regarding speed and disk image compression ratio, Terabyte Image for Linux/Windows and Drive Snapshot stand out. Currently I use these two to make two disk images for each of my Windows installation. These two are also the best backup tools for Linux EXT4. If R-Drive could seriously improve its speed and compression ratio, then I might consider using it. But for now, it has a long way to go.
     
  14. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    I try to keep installed imagers to a minimum, but I've not found a good reason to not install both Macrium and IFW
     
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